Lighting control can be used to automatically control lighting under certain conditions, thereby conserving power. However, lighting control, specifically advanced lighting controls have not been widely adopted in the general commercial market because the installation, setup related costs and complexity have made these lighting systems prohibitively expensive for most commercial customers. Additionally, if these systems include intelligence, they are generally centrally controlled. Central control typically interprets Boolean (for e.g. contact closure) inputs from sensors and reacts according to pre-configured settings.
Existing solutions for providing activation of lights through sensing of motion are limited in intelligence. For example, lights that are located within offices can be equipped with motion sensors that, on detection of motion, turn on the lights for a fixed, manually adjustable, amount of time. This type of motion sensing has no way of adapting to false triggers (for example, an occupant walking past in a corridor (hallway) right outside a private office), or adaptively increasing sensitivity and an active light interval for an occupant that is very still or is invisible (for example behind a large monitor) to the motion sensor.
Solutions for the open-areas typically include motion sensors associated with a zone of light fixtures. The motion sensors are often placed at an entry to the open-areas or central to the zone in the ceiling and, once triggered, turns the light on based on a timer. These timers during weekdays cause the zone to be lit for the entire duration of the normal working hours. Turning all fixtures on and off in a zone is typically not practical because the motion sensors do not have granular visibility of the zone and occupants in neighboring zones are affected by constant light changes.
Within open-areas, corridors often have the same light fixtures as the rest of the floor providing more than required foot-candle levels for an area used primarily for walking. Applying existing motion based techniques in frequently traveled areas can be particularly distracting to occupants in adjacent areas, for example, cubicles and offices.
It is desirable to have a lighting method, apparatus and system for intelligent control of distributed lighting and devices that provides user-friendly lighting and environmental control in and around well traveled areas.